Syracuse University to name its centerpiece Quad after former Chancellor Kenneth 'Buzz' Shaw

View full sizePeter Chen / The Post-StandardThe view of the Syracuse University quad from Link Hall of Engineering, with Hendricks Chapel in the back. A marker will be erected near Hendricks Chapel and banners will be hung on poles around the area to mark the quad's new name: the Kenneth A. Shaw Quadrangle.

Syracuse, NY -- The Quad, the lawn ringed by academic buildings atop the Syracuse University Hill where generations of students have played games and protested wars, courted and cavorted, celebrated triumphs and mourned losses, is being renamed for its 10th chancellor, Kenneth A. “Buzz” Shaw.

University officials plan to announce the change at an event this morning with the board of trustees, followed by a campus news alert by e-mail, said Kevin C. Quinn, senior vice president for public affairs. A marker will be erected near Hendricks Chapel and banners will be hung on poles around the area to mark the new name: the Kenneth A. Shaw Quadrangle. A timetable has not been set.

“Buzz Shaw’s achievements laid the groundwork for all that we’re doing today, from our strategic investments in signature academic programs and the facilities to house them to signature engagements with our community,” said Chancellor Nancy Cantor, Shaw’s successor.

“To recognize his expansive impact and its centrality to SU now and into the future, we thought it would be fitting to dedicate the space at the very heart of the university, the central place that connects academic life, student life, and athletics, to Buzz,” Cantor said.

Here’s some background about the Quad and its namesake:

The buzz about “Buzz”:

Chancellor from 1991 to 2004, Shaw restructured the university’s finances, cutting 450 jobs and trimming department budgets to erase the $38 million deficit he inherited. He also led the effort to make SU a student-centered research university. The number of incoming students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes rose 90 percent and attrition and graduation rates improved.

A fund drive, “Commitment to Learning,” raised $373 million. The Off-Campus Student Services office established under his watch improved relations with university-area homeowners. SU’s men’s basketball team won the national championship in 2003.

“I tried to create a culture where people worked together to serve the university’s mission,” Shaw said in an interview Thursday.

Shaw and his wife and associate chancellor, Mary Ann Shaw, became known for community work.

Shaw chaired the Metropolitan Development Association board from 2003 to 2010 and served as a director of the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce until 2004. He chaired the committee that put together a plan to merge them into CenterState CEO. He was a charter member of the Syracuse 20/20 community visioning group. He also has been a director of Syracuse-based Unity Life since 1992 and currently is its vice chairman.

Mary Ann Shaw chaired the drive to raise money for the Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital, was general chair of the local United Way campaign and was a driving force behind Success by 6.

Both received the Interreligious Council of Central New York’s Inter-religious Leadership Award in 2004 and a national Others award from Salvation Army in October.

Quad history:

The Quad originally was a crop field behind the Hall of Languages. It was turned into an athletic field called The Old Oval as the campus expanded in the early 20th century. Its standing as SU’s community center solidified between the construction of Archbold Stadium (now the site of the Carrier Dome) in 1907 and Hendricks Chapel in 1930.

The 1970 student strike following the killing of students by National Guard soldiers at Kent State is perhaps the most famous event to have taken place there, said Mary O’Brien, SU’s reference archivist. More recently it was the site of Sheets of Expression, in which students spontaneously taped bed sheets to the sidewalks and wrote their observations following the 9/11 attacks.

Comfort zone:

Shaw said Tom Walsh, SU’s vice president for institutional development, called about six weeks ago to tell him the board of trustees wanted to name the Quad for him.

“I’m very pleased,” Shaw said. As chancellor, he said, it was important to him that there was a place where people could chat and sit out on the grass on nice days, “sort of like your living room or maybe your family room of your house, where you keep it looking nice but you know you can go there and there’s a certain comfort to it.” He encouraged construction of benches there.

“I got a lot of comfort out of it myself. ... Often on very nice days I would sit out on the Quad and just sit. And somebody would come up and talk to me and somebody would walk by and say ‘hello,’ somebody would walk by me and look down. I felt like I was a part of an institution rather than always sitting in my office ... And so I found a lot of not only solace from being there, but also an opportunity to engage with people that I otherwise wouldn’t see.”

Good company:

Eight of the nine chancellors who preceded Shaw had buildings named for them:

Shaw, 71, holds the titles chancellor emeritus and university professor. The Shaws moved earlier this year to Western Springs, Ill., outside Chicago, but the professor teaches a Web-based leadership course to SU master’s in business administration students. He also serves as a consultant to presidents and trustees at schools of higher education.

Otherwise, he said, he is playing a little tennis and “learning to sleep late.”

Factoids:

He received a doctorate in social psychology in 1964 from Purdue University ... Ask him about children, Ken, Susan and Sara, and seven grandchildren ... He’s the author of two books, “The Successful President: ‘Buzzwords’ on Leadership” and “The Intentional Leader” ... He made 83.1 percent of his foul shots as a guard at Illinois State University, sixth best in school annals .. He was nicknamed “Buzz” for “reasons unknown” by his father. “He liked nicknames. Our dog was named ‘Spike.’ I always felt it could have gone one of two ways where the dog is called Buzz and the son is called Spike. I lucked out — Buzz is a lot easier to live with than Spike.”